The Charge

Opening Statement

Everyone's favorite blind swordsman/masseur/gambler returns for four more
small-screen adventures.

Facts of the Case

This third volume of Zatoichi is a two-disc set that contains the
following episodes from the series' first season:

Disc One: • Episode 10: "The Sumo Wrestler Who
Found His Home" Ichi (Shintaro Katsu, Incident at Blood Pass)
finds himself with an unwanted apprentice after preventing the suicide of a
naïve young sumo wrestler with a voracious appetite. Reuniting the kid with
his long lost father will not only save the blind swordsman's sanity, but may
resolve a conflict Ichi has with a local yakuza boss to whom he owes
money. Grade: B

• Episode 11: "The Whirlwind of Kisoji" Ichi is
caught in the middle when a kindly itinerant doctor and a jaded, gun-wielding
yojimbo with mysterious connections to each other's pasts converge on a
crime-ridden little town at the foot of Kisoji Mountain. Grade:
A

Disc Two: • Episode 12: "Humanity and
Justice" Ichi crosses paths with Osei, a woman hardened by tragedy.
She dresses like a man, knows how to use a sword, and is out for revenge against
the Gonzo family boss who betrayed her father. Meanwhile, the boss has his own
problem: a spoiled, lazy, preening, henpecking lover. Grade: A+

• Episode 13: "The 1,000 Ryo Raffle" When a
Norita Shrine lottery ticket in Ichi's possession wins big, the blind swordsman
attempts to return it to the troubled young yakuza who gave it to him.
This act of kindness draws Ichi into the middle of a conflict between the
yakuza and his former boss, who stole the young man's wife during his
recent incarceration. Grade: A+

The Evidence

Thirteen episodes into its first season, it's become clear that Zatoichi
Monogatari is an Eastern analog to American television series like The
Fugitive, The Incredible Hulk, and especially Kung Fu. Like
those shows, Zatoichi offers a wandering protagonist who encounters a
cast of fresh supporting players each week, and whose mostly placid and
peace-loving behavior is punctuated by interludes of explosive action. One might
assume that, since the show is a small-screen continuation of a film franchise
with 25 entries, its producers might have been eager to make full use of the
narrative sprawl of the weekly TV format. But Zatoichi offers no
multi-episode storylines (not yet, at least). The blind swordsman dispatches
enemy yakuza and yojimbo at the end of each episode just as he did
in the movies that came before. Not that this narrative restraint is necessarily
a bad thing. The lean, focused stories keep the show from devolving into soap
opera melodrama. And the really good news is that the episodes on Volume Three
improve over the already solid offerings in the first two volumes. Episodes 12
and 13, in particular, find the series' writers finally breaking away from the
comfortable but threadbare plot formulas established in the film franchise.

The woman-warrior Osei is so forceful a counterpart to Ichi, she almost
becomes the lead character in "Humanity and Justice." Her
determination to achieve justice for her father is admirable even if she's in
over her head. The tense dynamic between Osei and Ichi offers the blind
swordsman a new kind of role as he works secretly to help the woman achieve her
goal without her knowing his sword skills have proved invaluable in her quest.
"The 1,000 Ryo Raffle" places our hero in a similarly tenuous spot, as
Ichi is both ally and enemy to the young yakuza betrayed by his greedy,
two-faced boss.

The blind swordsman is front and center in both stories because we
experience events from his perspective, but he's not the focus of the action. In
both episodes, one can sense the show's writers and producers discovering the
potential in elevating guest players to star status while allowing Ichi to play
a more passive role as an observer and catalyst. A convenience born of the
show's weekly format, it would have been impossible in the film series. Future
episodes of the series will hopefully follow and expand upon this formula.

As with the first two volumes of Zatoichi, Volume Three's episodes
appear unrestored but well-preserved considering their age. Dirt, damage, and
coarse grain are abundant in some shots, but not prevalent enough throughout to
be bothersome so long as one has reasonable expectations. Color and detail vary
from shot to shot, but none of the shots are faded or hazy enough to annoy.
Digital artifacts are minimal. The transfer could look better assuming the folks
at Media Blasters were stupid enough to sink a load of money into the
restoration of such a niche title (which they clearly are not), but it could
also look worse.

The audio is in keeping with the video. The presentation is single-channel
mono in Japanese. Hiss and other distractions are minimal.

The only supplements are trailers for four other Media Blasters DVD
releases: Baian the Assassin, Red Shadow, Samurai
Reincarnation, and the 1989 Zatoichi feature film directed by
Shintaro Katsu.

Closing Statement

Zatoichi is an entertaining, artfully shot pulp action series that
gets better with each cluster of episodes judiciously doled out by Media
Blasters. That said, it's only recommended for the Zatoichi completist. Unless
you already own all of the movies (which are equally pulpy in their
sensibilities, but have the advantage of larger budgets and vistas framed at
2.35:1), there's not much point in plunking down your hard-earned scratch for
episodes of the television show.

Completists, however, can rest assured that they'll like what they find on
Volume Three of Zatoichi: The Television Series.

The Verdict

Bring on Volume Four.

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